Single mother Ana Alfaro made the difficult decision to leave her native Guatemala with her son, Jose, with the hope of a better life for her small family. The transition proved traumatic for Jose; this was coupled with a speech impediment that led to the monolingual Spanish-speaking adolescent having a hard time fitting in with fellow students…
In December 2012, MEDA worked with city agencies and 26 neighborhood partners to be the honored recipient of a $30-million federal Department of Education grant to replicate New York’s successful Harlem Children’s Zone in the Mission District of San Francisco. The goal of the Mission Promise Neighborhood (MPN) is to guide students on a cradle-to-college-to-career…
As part of the Promise Neighborhood grant, the United States Department of Education (DoE) mandates that all Promise Neighborhood grantees administer an annual school climate survey, at their target middle and high schools, to understand the impact of the initiative on students. Findings from the first school climate survey for the Mission Promise Neighborhood are…
Guest Blog by Teresa Morales Mission Promise Neighborhood Community Engagement It was an early Thanksgiving feast, Latino-style, held at MEDA’s Plaza Adelante on November 14th, with staff and promotoras sharing a meal. It was time to give a year-end thanks to these amazing community outreach workers, the six women who began working with MEDA and…
On a nondescript stretch of Mission Street—straddling the trendier Mission, Castro and SoMa districts—is the location of the offices of Support for Families of Children with Disabilities (SFF). While this area showcases little of the historic charm for which San Francisco is renowned, inside 1663 Mission, an elevator ride away on the seventh floor, some…
Dolores Terrazas speaks with pride of her dedicated staff of 90 that has made Mission Head Start a mainstay for San Francisco’s Latino community for over 40 years, myriad young lives positively affected over that time. “I enjoy the wonder of experiences of children who have a voice,” profoundly exclaims the Mission native, whose career…
When I consider how the Promise Neighborhoods Institute at PolicyLink (PNI) does its work with the 50+ communities in our network, I think about how we have developed the national infrastructure for improving the educational and development outcomes for the poorest children in America. PNI has developed a disciplined approach to thinking and moving from…
A sweet eight-year-old approached a volunteer from Target, the awaiting youngster being handed the first of 2,000 free backpacks the company had generously donated to Mission District schoolchildren. The child’s face was aglow as she rifled through the supplies in the backpack–her backpack. “Gracias. Thank you,” the grateful child sheepishly stated, cognizant that she was…
The definition of a mentor is an “experienced and trusted advisor.” The definition of success is “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.” Put these two terms together and a powerful San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) program called Mentoring for Success means that there are currently 620 schoolchildren in the city being afforded a…
The “Second City” announced a first-rate move this week: starting September 2nd, each of the approximately 400,000 children enrolled in 652 Chicago public schools will get a free meal each school day. It doesn’t matter if you live at a tony address on the North Side or in an underserved community in the south or…
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